


cynicism

by silkscrub



Category: Spider-Gwen (Comics), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Spider-Woman (Comic)
Genre: (or lack thereof), Anger Management, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Earth-65, F/M, I just went with it, I think ben is alive and not may in this universe?, Internal Monologue, Jealousy, One Shot, Single POV, but im not sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23677297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkscrub/pseuds/silkscrub
Summary: The problem with cynicism, Peter learned, is that it doesn't feel like cynicism.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	cynicism

The thing about Peter is, he wanted to be like Gwen long before he knew she was Spider-Woman.

It was their history that had backfired on him. Peter could envy her God-given talents, like her strength and creativity and silver tongue, with some logical detachment, but he could never fully swallow the knowledge that Gwen had grown up exactly like him and yet, as a holistic being, was flowering into someone visibly better than him. Peter never had her breadth of ability. He couldn't be popular _and_ authentic. He couldn't excel in math _and_ the arts. He couldn't play sports _and_ not be benched. 

Not only did Gwen do all those things, and she did them naturally. Even demons like her volatile emotional health, her annoying pickiness at little things, her infinite grudges, her frenemy bandmates (Peter never understood why she was so loyal to them), and everything else that burdened her only made her utter and objective goodness shine through, not that she was ever aware of it in the first place.

He always feared she would realize her worth and leave him. 

But real friends are unplanned; that's what makes them miracles. The circumstances that made Gwen a welcome constant in Peter's life were nothing less than a statistical wonder and a gift from the universe. A four-day gap between their births divided by the proximity of their homes, multiplied by the shared rock-hard resolve for academic glory, knack for ill-timed humor, and lack of a mother figure. Subtract a keen awareness of each other's kissing skills and lack thereof (what happens in eighth grade stays in eighth grade), all divided by a set of identical core values, and you get the kind of friendship you only see in movies. He loved her personality. This fact didn't belie his anger, it just made it harder to accept.

By high school, Peter knew enough to understand his bullies weren't just a karmic burden; the high tide in an alternating cycle of success and failure. They were a curse. In no universe, he's certain, does Gwen get shoved against a locker because her very existence demands it.

Gwen has friends and energy and a bright future, and so when they part (as they inevitably will), Peter figured she will transcend their youthful association and become the sun of her own solar system, not just the brightest star in his. 

///////

Still, Peter felt, and ashamedly so, the utmost morbid satisfaction at seeing her reaction to the Lizard. He loved watching her desperately scramble to keep people safe, ruin her prom dress and don her suit in haste, confused, shocked, _afraid_ at what he had in store. He loved watching her panic at being helpless, for just a moment, the rug snatched out from beneath her feet. 

And he gave her a good fight, too; probably because he hadn't ever allowed himself to swing so hard on the emotional pendulum. He surprised himself with his sheer strength; if he hadn't just signed his own death sentence, he imagined he could've made a pretty good supervillain. Moreover, his brain was on a level far beyond reason or control. Any reservation he would've felt about hurting people was squashed.

Transforming all the pent-up humiliation into forceful punches didn't give him the primitive catharsis he expected. It made him a monster. 

As the stage crumbled, so did his rage.

The problem with cynicism, Peter learned, is that it doesn't feel like cynicism. It just feels like you're better than everybody else. And it was such an easy trap that it killed him. In what kind of fucked up world is nobody innocent? If he thought a person as good as Gwen Stacy deserves emotional torture, what does that say about everybody else? Perhaps Gwen's most notable skill was the power to see the world as good.

///////

He doesn't quite remember everything that happened near the end, but he does remember the urgency to tell Gwen how he felt. He knew he was dying. He knew she was crying at the sight of his now-revealed face, his fading scales. The wind was knocked out of him completely, and he wasn't sure if he could get the words out in time. It seemed fair; his actions said enough. All he needed to do was tell her why. Anything for an ounce of forgiveness from his favorite person.

Even if he never got that forgiveness, at least he would never know a world without her.


End file.
